Colleges and universities are starting to face the reality of declining numbers of students. Their customer base is shrinking. State systems will need to make adjustments, but how?

In today’s Martin Center article, Maggie Szura takes a look at this question. California is one state that’s bracing for the enrollment crunch, and she writes, “In January, Cal State leaders announced the blueprints for the new strategy. As Inside Higher Ed reported, the plan will pull five percent of enrollment funding from colleges that fall short of their enrollment targets by 10 percent or more. This puts several Cal State colleges in a tricky situation.”

Keep up your student numbers or we’ll cut your funding! On the one hand, that’s reasonable — why shouldn’t shrinking schools get less state funding? On the other hand, as Szura observes, this gives schools an incentive to lure in students who are not college-ready.

Texas and Oregon are also trying to deal with declining enrollments.

I like Szura’s conclusion: “In any case, genuine community growth will be hard to come by unless colleges begin once more to offer true education and training, not just credentialing.”